Aspie Footware

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Most Aspies are defined by the trauma and constant stress that we endure. Psychotherapist work with clients using basic grounding exercise for clients who feel stressed, anxious, panicked, hyped up, triggered, have racing thoughts, feeling dissociated, spaced out or exhausted. The goal of the grounding exercise is to harness the skills of the mind – focus and attention – and an attribute of our biology – sensation – to transform the state of the nervous system from activation to calm alert. The goal is to successfully use our own willpower and intention to return ourselves to our own Resiliency Zone. This grounding exercise is to help one emerge from numbness by activating one of the 5 senses – tactile sensations – that may have gone numb as a result of trauma. It is to deepen the experience of being in a body and having a body, reducing dissociation.

In normal daily life, I am very aware of one of my extremities, my hands because I am constantly using them. But I am less aware of my feet. They are on the opposite end of my body (from my brain) and I rarely feel them. So although a psychotherapist might try to ground a patient's sensations in an office, I perceive that it might be advantageous to be able to easily ground oneself continuously in daily real life.

So one of my anomalies is that I like to walk around my house barefoot. I am constantly aware of my feet when I am at home. I do not know why I do this. It is not socially acceptable but it feels good. I like the feel of my feet on the floor, the tactile sensations. So I walk barefoot in my house but I also try and accommodate my wife's wishes to wear some footwear when I walk outside so that I do not track dirt back into the house. So I recently bought a pair of sandals for that function. The pair of sandals I picked had one peculiarity. I didn't consciously pick this attribute but maybe unconsciously chose it. The insole of the sandal incorporated a hard rubber zig-zag pattern of ridges. [Photo: Rodwell Slide Sandal Black] I noticed when I wear the sandals that the rubber insoles constantly provide some tactile signals to my brain that keep the sensations of my feet grounded.

So then I began searching the internet for other applications incorporating this feature in shoe design. So I noticed that Dr. Scholl's makes a variety of insoles that incorporate this feature. Here is a link to one example: DR. SCHOLL’S® COMFORT & ENERGY WORK INSOLES Although they use the terms messaging, energizing and invigorating to describing this type of insole, I feel that it is an insole that enhances tactile sensations to the feet, especially if you avoid using stockings.

So just as young Aspies uses a number of coping tools to compensate for sensitivity control issues (such as noise cancelling headsets, sunglasses indoors, weighted blankets), the type of insoles we wear on our feet may be a compensation tool to aid in the ability to constantly ground ourselves.

It's not socially acceptable to be barefoot? Since when?

I hate anything on my feet, I wear socks and sneakers to work but the socks instantly come off the second I get home. If I'm not at work I wear Birkenstock sandals, they're made of cork so they don't absorb sweat and odour like other rubber soled sandals. That's all I can wear, anything else and I'm constantly moving my toes around to try and make them comfortable inside.

I was "pigeon toed" as a child (and ridiculed frequently for it) and completely flat footed. I had to wear "corrective shoes" which I don't think had any real benefit and drawing more attention to feet as the corrective footwear did, was certainly not a benefit.

I developed arches in later childhood and I either didn't notice over a long period of time or I "grew" arches in an instant. When I noticed and alerted my parents, my parents and I were amazed.

I over-pronate quite a lot. A pair of custom orthotics were made for me about 10 years ago when I took up jogging for exercise. I no longer jog but still wear the same orthotics when I walk regularly. I can put those orthotics in any shoe.

I'm almost completely flat-footed.

But I can wear most men's shoes/sneakers without much discomfort.

I don't like wearing flip-flops. I wear sneakers in places where flip-flops are usually worn.

To think about it, my father was flat footed. I wonder if there is any correlation between being flat footed and autistic!

There are only black bears in the mountains where I live. I want footwear with latex casts of the tracks of some humongous grizzly bear, so that very early some snowy morning I can strap them on, and go for a stroll on the village square; past town hall, then across to the office of our weekly newspaper...

I certainly need plenty of foot-ground sensation. If I wear thick-soled footwear, I feel as if I'm walking on the moon, and my sense of where the ground is relative to my body becomes very vague (especially on tessellated or patterned flooring, which mess with my visual perception.)

I googled flat feet and autism and some things came up. One looked like quackery from a doc who says autism can be reversed.

There was, however, a legitimate study of gait abnormality in autistic children compared to a control group of non-autistic children. The study specifically excluded children with aspergers so I don't know how old it was. Flat feet was a common factor among the autistic children.

^ Unusual gait from tip-toe walking seems to be quite common too. I still go on tip-toe a lot around the house, and when I'm pacing around (a kind of stimming for me, I think). Due to putting my weight mostly on my toes, and a touch of over-pronation, I always look as if I'm walking into a strong wind, and wobble from side-to-side and bounce up-and-down as I walk. It's never given me any mobility problems; in fact, I walk just about everywhere that it's remotely possible, often cross-country in a very hilly area and in inclement weather or in the dark. However, some tip-toe walkers do end up needing corrective interventions, even surgery, due to shortening of the achilles tendon and similar complications.

Another thing regarding footwear, which I have in common with my Mum, is that my feet overheat ridiculously easily. I can't stand boots, and often wear trainers with mesh ventilation panels all year round, even to walk in snow. I would rather have wet feet and socks than have my feet get too hot (I always have warm hands, too.)

Interesting

I was a barefooter as a child and was lucky enough to live in a place where quirkiness was valued and to present as NT "enough" to be an almost 24/7 barefooter during the earlier part of this decade when #OWS was in the news. The improvement in my overall health was amazing. I wasn't the activist who made the positive changes that make barefooting in the public library no big deal and illegal to harass, but I'm sure knowing that I was publicly defending my right to live without unnecessary back and knee pain in solidarity with her Native American religious beliefs didn't hurt her case much.

We live in a different world now so don't have the luxury of pain-freeness any more, but some of it is regional. I can afford to rent a house in a town where people react to barefooters with "Where are your SHOES?!?!?!?!? Are you crazy or on drugs?" but I can afford to skip an entertainment product I don't really enjoy and buy enough gasoline with that money to drive to a higher-rent but more tolerant area where people react with, "You're very humble about your fitness achievements, but I admire the fact that you walk barefoot." and consider it perfectly polite, acceptable, normal, and no big deal when I reply, "Yea, I need a closer connection to the earth than I can get in a city apartment."

Wearing shoes during every waking hour of your entire life is every bit as much of a body modification as piercings, tattoos, 16" waists in the corset era, etc. and very unhealthy for homo sapiens.

I'm too new to post links, but you're smart and can find Society for Barefoot Living and Parents for Barefoot Children with your search engines anyway, lol, and there's plenty of info with footnotes on their sites. Not liking shoes isn't something that is "wrong" with us any more than not liking cigarettes or not enjoying a spoonful of rat poison in our morning coffee.

ETA: I just remembered barefoot sandals! If you're young enough and cute enough, these might work for you. It's just a bit of jewelery that you can crochet or buy on etsy that is sort of like a toering for your big toe that is attached to an ankle bracelet in such a way that it looks like you're wearing a pair of sandals so they leave you alone at the supermarket. Your soles are bare, though, so you can feel the coolness of the tile on a hot summer day.

I only wear New Balance all leather walking shoes. Size 11 4E. I need extra wide for my braces.

When I was in ot, there was allegedly a gait that aspies had that is similar to what neurotypicals used to call a “nerd walk”- it used to be done in my high school every year on “nerd day” when people basically were imitating people with mental disabilities. I ended up stopping that s**t by typing a letter to every member of the school board. I myself also have problems with being flat-footed and having hot feet. What I’ve learned from studying homonids is that shoes actually caused us permanent harm by weakening our ankles so being bare-foot all the time is probably a good thing

^ I've gotten very used to people doing caricatures of my walk when I'm out and about. On the odd occasion that someone actually says anything about it, and if I'm feeling brave, I just ask them how far they walk in an average week. It's usually only a tiny fraction of the amount of walking I regularly do. It may not look elegant, but it damned well gets me where I want to go, and in half the time that most other folks could walk it. It's my primary mode of transport, so I've just had to develop a thick skin about it, otherwise I'd never be able to leave the house.

The last pair of shoes I bought have very flat soles. I will not be doing that again, it makes me feel more stompy when I walk.

So for those of us who walk around barefooted, do you feel an enhances tactile sensations to the feet, as a psychotherapist might say that you feel more grounded and aware of your lower extremity?

I guess from my perspective I can say that I never really thought about it. But I can say that I really like it and as a result I try to do it as much as I can.